Why natives
Growing and cultivating native plants in California was a novelty in the suburbs, until the ‘Green’ movement becomes mainstream and made it more accepted for residential gardens. Sunset magazine was a great proponent early on. California natives live fine in our Mediterranean climate. But why do we, here in the foothills, need to know about natives? We are native! We are lucky enough to have loads of natural beauty around us. So why then, do we plant the plants we do?
Wet winters, dry summers
Simply, a Mediterranean climate has rain in the winter and little if any rain in the summer. It’s relatively rare on our planet; besides California, it only exists in some places in the Mediterranean, in South Africa, and in parts of Chile and Australia. In those places there are native plants adapted to at least six months of dry weather. The plants we are used to growing, actually come from the East coast and from Europe, promoted by nurserymen there and those plants are used to having rain all year. So what do we do? We water and water our plants to keep our gardens alive.
What’s the alternative?
The alternative was brought to us from an unlikely source. An Englishman named Theodore Payne came to the United States, appreciated our California native plants and started a nursery of his own to promote them in our own state. He first worked in gardens on Madame Modjeska’s ranch in Santiago Canyon in Orange County. He began his nursery and began planting vacant lots with native plantings in 1905. He designed a 5-acre wild garden at Los Angeles’ Exposition Park and helped Mrs. Susanna Bixby Bryant with siting and design of original Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in Orange County. He developed a 5-acre native plant garden at Descanso Gardens, in La Canada at the age of 84 and by 1960, three years before his death, The Theodore Payne Foundation for Wild Flowers and Native Plants was founded.
You can find natives everywhere!
Now California native plants are more and more popular and especially in our area, we have that many more alternatives. Today, there are many branches of the California Native Plant Society where information can be found about the beauty and ease of natives. Authors like Judith Larner and Louise Lacey are pointing out the beauty and easy care of natives.
We are fortunate in our mountain area to have Intermountain Nursery in Prather which has a huge, extraordinary, collection of everything from seeds to trees. See more links below about our California native plants.
Louise Lacey says on her website:
“The biggest difference between your garden and natives is that they seldom need water — or fertilizer, and almost never need cultivation, either. How can that be? They live here. They don’t need us!”
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